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In the background...

I usually mourn the end of summer. This year I'm not so sad. It has nothing to do with summer being too hot. For me, this summer was pretty mild. I think I'm just in a better frame of mind at the moment. Maybe also because while summer wasn't too hot for me, it has been too hot to walk Harlem home in the afternoons, and well, I kind of miss my afternoon walks. Cooler weather will mean being able to get in two walks a day, which is good for my mental well being.

I think the antidepressants are helping as well. Certainly, I haven't been having the horrible lows I was sinking into in December and January. A lot of people don't like the idea of chemically treating depression or anxiety but I really do find it works for me. I did really well without the ADs for a long while there - three years, I think, but something changed last year. I don't really know what it was - I'd say stress, certainly the seizure is put down to stress, but I've had very high amounts of stress within the period I was fine as well. Maybe it was prolonged stress? Or maybe it was just too much high stress? Too much excitement? I don't know. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.

I'm feeling a bit better about my research since having written that abstract last week. I think it helped me think big picture. I seem to get stuck in the part of the thesis I'm working on at any given time. I seem to think each part is the whole thesis and some parts are quite distant from my central goal - still supporting my argument, but they feel quite separate at the same time. The abstract allowed me to piece together all the bits to see how relevant everything is - and it all is relevant.

Having said all of the above, I feel a bit detached from everything.

Like I'm floating around my own life, not really in it. It isn't an existential crisis, per se. I'm not feeling any sense of a crisis, just that my life isn't really my life. It's all a bit of a fascade.

I'm aware that I'm feeling lonely, and that I can't seem to believe anyone would really enjoy my company.

I became aware of this last night when the Grumpy Old Man commented on how devoted Harlem seems to be to me already - H was sitting in front of me staring at me, he does this when he wants something. I couldn't feel it. I couldn't feel the devotion. What I did feel was that the Grumpy Old Man was misreading the situation.

Now, I know dogs are very loyal and quite simple really, in their emotions. If you feed them and are kind to them, they tend to love you. So, I have to ask myself why I'd question the devotion of my dog?

It's the detachment.

I feel - I have always felt - that people don't really like me. That people tolerate me. It's something I can't seem to shake. Somewhere way back this sense of how other people see me took hold and I just can't believe that anyone would actually like me. This goes for everyone, really. From the moment I meet people, I find myself trying delay the point at which I will inevitably rub them the wrong way. The point from which they will tolerate me.

Sometimes, I just don't care. Some people just shit me, and then I don't care. If I like a person though, I tend to expect that sooner or later they will become annoyed by me because I am too outspoken.

The odd thing is. I like me. I like people like me. I just feel like I inhabit a world of people who are too soft for the likes of me. They can't cope with my spiky bits - it's not their fault, it just makes things difficult because I am what I am, I've tried to be different but in the end I always end up just being what I am.

So, I'm floating a bit at the moment. Watching my life from the background. Maybe that's just a side effect of the medication as well - maybe also the anti convulsants...

I still need to get to the GP about the combined anti convulsant and migraine medication. The migraines keep coming and because I suffer daily headaches, most of which don't become migraines but some do (about 3 times a fortnight), I'm finding it difficult to deal with them medicinally. I feel like I'm taking so much medication I try to minimise it, and sometimes that's okay because I can tolerate a headache, but sometimes it turns into a migraine and by the time that is happening it's too late to medicate against it.

And then there is the thought that that medication might further exaccerbate the feeling of detachment...

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